The Effectiveness of Graphology: Can Handwriting Reveal Sex, Dominant Hand, and Personal Outlook of a Writer?
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF GRAPHOLOGY: CAN HANDWRITING REVEAL SEX, DOMINANT HAND, AND PERSONAL OUTLOOK OF A WRITER?
Submitted By
Meredith N. Weber
As part of a Tutorial in Communication
December 7, 2005
Chatham College
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1 Table of Contents
Chapter One………………………………………………………………………………1-30 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………1 History of Language………………………………………………………………...1-5 Written Communication…………………………………………………………...5-10 Figure 1………………………………………………………………………………..9 Figure 2………………………………………………………………………………..9 Written Versus Print……………………………………………………………...10-15 Handwriting………………………………………………………………………15-20 Graphology……………………………………………………………………….20-28 Figure 3………………………………………………………………………………28
Review of Literature…………………………………………………………………….30-32
Methodology……………………………………………………………………………..32-35
Findings……………………………………………………………………………………...36
Conclusions & Discussion……………………………………………………………....37-41 Suggestions for Future Research………………………………………...…………..41
References………………………………………………………………………………..42-43
Appendix 1………………………………………………………………………………44-45
Appendix 2…………………………………………………………………………………..46
Appendix 3…………………………………………………………………………………..47
Appendix 4………………………………………………………………………………48-50
Appendix 5…………………………………………………………………………………..51
Appendix 6…………………………………………………………………………………..52
Appendix 7…………………………………………………………………………………..53
Appendix 8…………………………………………………………………………………..54
Appendix 9…………………………………………………………………………………..55
Appendix 10…………………………………………………………………………………56
Appendix 11……………………………………………………………………………..57-59
2
Introduction
The field of graphology was instituted many years ago; however, it is still a developing discipline. While there has been extensive research completed on the topic, it is not an accepted practice in science or government in many cultures. As there is no concrete method used to analyze handwriting, nor is there solely one systematic method of drawing a character analysis from handwriting, scientists reason graphology is a pseudo-science.
Communication can occur in many forms, including verbal and nonverbal communication, and body language. People also infer meaning from such things as appearances. Handwriting is unique to each person and can provide information about its author. This study looks at the history of graphology and examines the possibility that handwriting is an external expression of oneself.
History of Language
Language began as basic gestures and progressed to today’s multi-syllabic words formed from symbols representing sounds. The acquisition of language occurs through imitation.
Gestures, sounds, words, speaking, and writing are all learned behaviors passed on through past generations, each one adding, subtracting, and altering the form of communication.
Children are taught language today similar to how language began; it is a process that starts
at birth with gestures, then, words, and finally, writing. “He [a child] hears the people about
him speaking and by some internal mechanism known as a language acquisition device, he
abstracts from what he hears the rules of the grammar of his native language” (Arlotto197).
Language is constantly changing in every culture; it is continually modernized to encompass
the evolution of intelligence and technology.
3 There is no concrete understanding of how language began other than it arose as speech to communicate with others. Max Müller, a German theorist, developed several theories, including the bow-wow theory. This idea assigns origin to the replication of natural sounds into words representing those objects; these sounds were only taken from nature not human noises. This is a very limiting theory as not many words are recorded to imitate the sound of animals. Another of Müller’s theories is that of the pooh-pooh theory. This states that language stems from sounds that humans instinctively make during emotional outbursts, like that of pain or fear. There are universal sounds still existing and understood today.
The French theorist, Noiré, similarly theorized that the etymology of speech was sound imitation in what is referred to as the yo-he-ho theory. This suggested that words were created based on the noise humans make when performing a certain task. People working together would learn and understand the meanings as they heard them and saw what the sound related to; it was then repeated by those in that working group and later imitated by the community. This theory utilizes the idea that consonants were the first letters formed coming from uttered sounds, like grunts. As the sounds, or consonants, became recognized, they could then be used with one another leading to the creation of words. While these theories are based on facts, other theorists throughout history have combined the original theories and identified gestures as the beginning of communication. Speech, and therefore modern language, developed from the sounds accompanying gestures. As human intelligence progressed, speech communication eliminated gesture communication and became the predominant language.
Today, there are two forms of communication, including verbal and nonverbal.
Verbal language consists of the spoken word, or speech, and the written word, or script.
4 Nonverbal refers to gesture communication, which originally lead to verbal communication and today’s American Sign Language. This study concerns only the use of verbal communication. Script is a by-product of speech relating what is spoken into something tangible that can be preserved. “Contemporary analyses of written language show that writing is both less and more than a mirror of speech. Less, because it leaves out pronunciation, intonation, and facial cues. More, because it often has its own vocabulary, syntax, and usage conventions” (Baron 7). Both speech and script utilize different parts of the body with each being unique to the individual. Sounds for speech are created by unconscious muscular movements at different parts of the vocal tract that create variations of noise. Script employs the use of finger, hand, and arm muscles as well as a writing tool. The free-form muscular movement brings the tool across a writing surface creating markings, or letters. Unlike gesture communication, neither speech nor script has overpowered the other, and each co-exist and function together in most cultures.
Spoken language developed through experiences of action and reaction. “The fundamental use of speech (over the ages), the commonest use of speech, and the original use of speech, is the request for action addressed from one person” (Diamond 144). If a gesture produced a particular reaction repeatedly, it became a sort of language. From that point, the gesture would be replaced with a noise associated with the gesture or action. This process of development from gesture to noise and eventually to word has continued throughout time in all cultures leading to the modern languages of today; therefore, “throughout its known life language has developed to express the needs of man in society, and those needs have molded it” (Diamond 143).
5 Language has grown through social interaction and is imitative. It is a learned behavior taught to each other by each other. A particular gesture in one family might mean something completely different in another; these gestures (or noises) do not fully constitute a language until each one is accepted and used by others outside the originating family. This is the same process used today; a new word or meaning of a word is not actually part of a culture’s language until others of the community accept and use it.
The evolution of language has progressed with that of mankind’s mental development. “The broad stages in that advance [development of intellect] are, first in date, a consciousness of movements, second a consciousness of objects, and third, a consciousness, or conception, of qualities” (Diamond 60). The most basic form of communication can be seen back in the Stone Age where gestures were used by small groups to express wants and needs among each other. Some language vocabulary recognized and understood by several groups of one area was created with the development of a small trade market.
From this point forward in this chapter, language will refer primarily to English speech and also Latin script, not gestures as they are basis for one individual communicating a thought to another receiving and interpreting it. This process of transmission, receiving, and decoding is done through the use of words created by character symbols, known as letters, representing one complete vocal sound each. The symbols form the English alphabet consisting of twenty-six letters, including twenty-one consonants (“one of a class of speech sounds characterized by constriction or closure at one or more points in the breath channel”
(Gove) and five vowels (“one of a class of speech sounds in the articulation of which the oral part of the breath channel is not blocked and is not constricted enough to cause audible
6 friction” (Gove). When consonants and vowels are strung together a word is created pronounced like the sounds of the letters and written the same way.
Written Communication
Although speech developed first, writing has had a significantly greater impact on people, society, and the world all around. Among many accomplishments, written communication created the ability to communicate distantly, record data, and increase knowledge. There have been many forms of writing in all manner of styles continually changing with the development of human intellect and technology. Many languages have built from one another borrowing writing systems, alphabets, materials, and styles and forms.
The first upright, two-legged human is traced to around 35,000 B.B. From then to about 15,000 B.C, a rudimentary writing system developed using pictures on cave walls.
These drawings were simply images of various items; however, as time progressed, human mentality developed and the images showed action. This is known as telling a picture-story.
Like much of language today, picture-stories were only understandable and significant to people of that society. Over time the pictures became symbols instead of full, life-like drawings. The pictures and symbols were arbitrary; since there was no standard system, they were left to each writer’s and reader’s interpretation.
Egyptians are found to have the earliest form of writing, known as hieroglyphics; some of these writings date to 196 B.C. Egyptians used a combination of pictures and phonetic symbols. Their writing, like most systems, changed throughout time and became more complex. Plain pictures representing one thing developed into idea-pictures representing ideas, actions, thoughts, etc. Next, sound-pictures were used creating syllables.
A picture’s meaning would represent the pronunciation created by that original meaning.
7 “For instance, the wavy line for water (in Egyptian, nu) came to mean simply the sound of
N” (Ogg 57). There are three types of written language-logographic, syllabic, and alphabetic. When symbols represent objects or whole concepts, a logographic system is used. A syllabic system uses a symbol to represent one syllable of sound. The English language is an alphabetic system of writing using one symbol to represent one complete sound.
As writing systems evolved, writing tools and materials were created. A paper-like substance called papyrus was constructed and used with a pen-like tool made from reed.
Since these tools enabled people to write quicker, many hieroglyphic symbols were simplified and some were eliminated. This abbreviation process continued for many years; however, a complete and consistent alphabet was never developed by Egyptians.
Phoenicians, living on the coast of what is now Syria, developed the first alphabetic writing system around 1200 B.C. They were skilled merchants of the Mediterranean and focused their writing efforts on record keeping. Remains of their writing show a system of sound-pictures only. Time was valuable in business so artistic design was eliminated from writing, focusing on speed and readability.
From the Phoenician alphabet came the Greek’s, developed around 900 B.C. This writing contained no written vowels, only consonants so the reader was forced to interpret the letters into recognizable words. Since this was not easily understood, some Phoenician letters/sounds were changed into vowels creating a twenty-four-word alphabet. The Greek alphabet was officially adopted in 403 B.C, and remnants are still used today.
It was not until the Middle Ages that word spacing, lower-case letters, and punctuation was used. Greek letter formation was influenced by the materials used, that of
8 tablet (wood filled with a thin layer of wax) and a stylus, or carving tool. The carving allowed only for short, straight markings. The use of parchment, a paper-like material created from animal hide, allowed writing to become more rounded and artistically designed.
Romans borrowed thirteen letters from the Greek alphabet, including A, B, E, F, H, I,
K, M, N, O, T, X, and Z. To the borrowed letters, C, G, L S, P, R, D, and V were added with
F and Q being taken from the letters abandoned by the Greeks creating an alphabet of twenty-three letters. (The last letters forming today’s alphabet-J, U, and W-were formed 500 to 1,000 years ago.) The Romans’ writing was one of the first to have a flowing and rounded design created because it was written not carved into materials like previous writings.
Much of written English can be attributed to past cultures. Not only did the Greeks generate the English alphabet, they also assisted in the format of writing. The process of writing from the left side of a page to the right is taken from Ancient Greek format of the sixth century B.C; this system allowed the majority of writers-right-handed writers-to see their words during the writing process. Also, the word ‘alphabet’ itself came from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet pronounced as alpha and beta.
Once the English writing system was developed, people had to learn it to use it. Few people were actually educated, and those that did read and write became known as scribes, who were most often clergymen. They wrote from dictation or later duplicated an exact copy of a book. As writing grew more in demand, scribes began to differ from the original standard format. They altered the letters to gain a speedier hand. “Their letters became real handwriting…gradually drifting into a more and more written way of working” (Ogg 135).
This style of writing is called ‘Rustic Capitals.’ “Perhaps [it is] because the letters have
9 natural simplicity. They look as if they had been casually done, although actually great skill went into their making” (Ogg 140).
A need for speed writing continued to alter writing forms. Lower-case letters developed after the Roman’s alphabet was created. They were formed through a progression of change beginning with the holding position of the writing utensil from a straight perpendicular hold to an angled grasp almost parallel to the paper. This crated a more fluid form leading to a tendency to connect letters next to one another instead of the designated method of removing pen from paper after each letter. This was the beginning of cursive writing.
After the Dark Ages and during the building of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles the Great
(Charlemagne) ordered all church documents and Greek and Roman classical works be rewritten. This task was undertaken by English scholar, Alcuin, who utilized the lower-case letters; this alphabet was known as the Caroline alphabet after Charlemagne. “[It] was a true small letter alphabet…so closely akin to the letters we use every day in the body of our writing” (Ogg 170). These small letters were used in sentences as today’s writing does, inter-mixing them with capitals. They were formed free of embellishments so scribes could easily and quickly write them, and they were easy to read. Throughout the Middle Ages, writing changed only minutely, and the styles did not last, but the use of the Roman and
Caroline styles returned. The Gothic style was one variation produced in twelfth century
Europe. Its form consisted of stiff, narrow, angular letters completely opposite from the smooth Caroline form. Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the different styles of writing seen over several centuries. These different forms of writing, including Egyptian hieroglyphics, Greek and Roman alphabet lettering, and Gothic and Caroline styles, have one thing in common;
10 they were all influenced in some way by the writing tool and/or writing material used.
Etching into a stone wall would result in a thicker stroke than a reed stick on papyrus or even a quill pen on parchment.
Figure 1 Figure 2 (Ogg) (Ogg)
The written language did become popular once materials and instruments were created; however, it was reading that interested people not the act of writing. Reading was a free skill to learn. It could be taught to young children by older family members. This teaching was done so all could read the Bible. Throughout time more and more people would learn to read; however, the act of writing was not a widely learned skill until after the eighteenth century. “Because reading and writing were understood to serve entirely different ends, instruction in one was divorced from instruction in the other. Reading was taught first, as a universal spiritual necessity; writing was taught second, and then only to some”
(Thornton 5).
11 Royalty and upper-class society learned reading and writing much earlier than the rest of society. During the 1700s, writing was a socio-economic skill; the rich learned it while the poor did not. This can be partly directed to the rich wanting to keep the poor in a lower class. “Withholding literacy was the most direct way of regulating the social and cultural weight attached to it. In some cases, those in power were conscious of the subversive potential of being able to write, and they deliberately prohibited those under their power from learning” (Thornton 17). Reading and writing generates greater intellect, which leads to the questioning of order and authority. The poorer class members also had little leisure time to read so there was no reason to write either; writing was not a necessity for them.
As the written language became more prevalent in business, more people focused on learning to read and some even to write. New technologies also assisted and hindered written communication to the point that writing is viewed as a method of capturing speech. Yet other viewpoints see it as more formal than speech. “Written speech is more artistic and more precise; it excludes the fragments of sentences, the slang, the not-yet accepted words, grammatical forms, syntax and meanings of today that may become the accepted language of tomorrow” (Diamond 11).
Written Versus Print
Writing was not a highly praised skill since there were designated people, primarily clergy, who read and wrote for the masses. As reading and writing were not required by law nor were they a necessity to live, many, including clergy, did not take part in either activity until the seventeenth century when legal documents, like wills, were required in written format. To have a literate society all members must have the means of writing as well as the knowledge of written communication. A lack of inexpensive writing material, like paper,
12 and a poor distribution system of reading materials, like books or magazines, were two major
problems spanning from Ancient Greece through the middle ages. Along with these
problems was that of socio-economics. “The problem wasn’t always lack of access.
Sometimes it was social policy-consciously keeping the poor in their place” (Baron 80).
Part of the reason the written word did not spread was due to the fact most reading
was performed orally, even when the reader was alone. Books were not readily available in
public spaces, and those that were in libraries, were placed in designated reading areas that
allowed for oral reading to occur without disturbing others nearby. During the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, libraries were designed as open spaces with books kept at open
locations to be used inside the building. Oral reading diminished greatly after 1412 when
Oxford and other libraries enforced rules forbidding any talking in the library. As more
universities were established, the need for silent reading also increased and the written
language became common. It was not until after England’s Public Library Act of 1850, that
literacy and the written communication rapidly advanced. Before that, few libraries existed
and those that did charged a fee to rent the books. This hindered many working and lower
class people from becoming literate.
The first use of an English alphabetic writing system was completed by scribes who
worked on copying one full book or taking dictation from another person, like a scribe
transcribing an author’s dictation. Handwriting was the only type of writing until the
invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1455. From that point on, there was
a decline of handwriting and an increase of print that still continues today.
Originally, there was a fear associated with the printing press by many throughout society. The ability to print written works meant a loss of jobs for scribes. Also, subject
13 matter of books and other works was altered. Authors, poets, and scholars typically wrote for
royalty and the upper class; however, they now had to alter their format to include the
interests of the lower classes. The printing presses were thought to suppress the artist since
royalty in sixteenth century England controlled the printing press operations and censored the
writings. These fears were soon overlooked as the masses utilized the opportunity afforded
them by the printing presses to access books easily and affordably drastically increasing
literacy rates.
Mass literacy in English came of age…thanks to…public libraries, the emergence of new literary genres aimed at the expanding literate population, and even new technologies. As the British railroad flourished in the mid-nineteenth century, thousands of city-dwellers went off on holiday. Travelers amused themselves during their train journeys by reading (Baron 80).
Another negative association with print was that writers became stigmatized as opportunists
for monetary gain since they received large sums of money with the printing of their works;
thus, generating a decline of print popularity.
After the printing press was invented, print and written documents were used equally.
Not only was print usually more expensive, but print also carried the negative connotation of being created for everyone, which upper-class members greatly disliked. “If print was the realm of social promiscuity and ideological control, script was the realm of exclusivity, privacy, and freedom” (Thornton 25). Print was slowly accepted by the upper-class. This can be related to the fact that print became used for most publications and documents. Also, print began to take the form and style of handwriting. This attracted many socialites as it made print acceptable in their eyes. Over the eighteenth century, printing advanced greatly so that all characters were lined up straight with equal spacing between letters, words, and lines; this made print more aesthetically pleasing than handwritten documents, which was
14 subject to the writer. Others still held to scribal documents as more acceptable; they felt
there was no feeling put in print unlike writing, which is created by body movement.
The printing press did generate some positive outcomes as it was the catalyst for the
spread of literacy. It rendered books more attainable by all, and public libraries could then afford more books while permitting free usage by patrons. As more and more books were copied and printed, the costs reduced greatly allowing middle and lower classes to purchase the readings unlike before. The press also circulated the English language as most books were printed in English, which made it a dominant language throughout Western Europe.
Handwriting declined even more so with the invention of the typewriter originally in 1714 by
English engineer, Henry Mill. Since people could write longhand faster than they could type and no one was trained in typing, the typewriter success was stalled until Christopher Latham
Sholes overtook the market in 1870 when an increase in businesses, therefore, an increase in clerical staff occurred.
Unlike the printing press and the typewriter which spread writing in one form or another, the most detrimental instruments to all written communication were the telegraph and telephone. Three French brothers of the Chapp family created the first rudimentary telegraph system in 1793; American, Samuel Morse, then advanced the technology using the electric telegraph and Morse code in 1838. Finally, all written correspondence was drastically reduced with Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone in 1876. Both of these inventions were used as distance communication tools connecting people across the states in a matter of minutes compared to mailed letters taking a week or more.
The next writing decline, and probably the most damaging to the handwritten word, resulted from the computer era of the twentieth century. This new technology gained
15 popularity rather quickly as it used the same techniques as the typewriter typing many already knew; yet, it provided a greater variety of functions. The written word most recently reduced with the development of the World Wide Web, the internet, when it was developed for personal use in the 1990s. This technology allows individuals to communicate not only locally and nationally but also internationally in a matter of seconds at any time. It generated a spread of the written language; however, it diminished the use of traditional print-books.
The internet provided users with an unlimited supply of information on all subjects without their having to physically research books.
Unlike speech, writing does not provide tell-tale signs of a writer’s dialect (“a variety of language that is used by one group of persons and has features of vocabulary, grammar, or pronunciation distinguishing it from other varieties used by other groups” (Gove), which provides quite a bit of information about the communicator. This is due to the fact English speakers and/or writers use the same spelling standard; therefore, one might assume that the standard writing format eliminates distinguishing characteristics. This assumption is untrue as a person’s geographic location can be distinguished by the actual words used. A group of people in one region will give one meaning to a word while another region of people will have a different meaning, thus generating jargon. That jargon is then used in the writing of the people of that locale. Not only can a person’s location be recognized, but age, sex, and profession are a few characteristics that might be noticed in handwriting as well as in speech; each group has a unique vocabulary unlike others that provides identification of the individual.
While print is a major section of written language today, that was not always the case.
All written documents were created by hand using handwriting. Just as there are many
16 speech dialects and print styles, there are many forms of handwriting that can be seen throughout history. Each is unique but builds off one another continually; handwriting is still developing today in the twenty-first century.
Handwriting
People are taught how to write by forming letters into words. The formation was determined in Medieval Europe with many changes taking place since that time. In the ninth and tenth centuries, words were spelled similar to the pronunciation sound of the syllables; however, during the Norman invasion, many word spellings altered to mimic French spelling. Much of the English language was stabilized because of the Chancery Standard, which developed during Henry IV and Henry’s V reining years. This was mostly due to the fact all Court documents circulating throughout England followed that standard.
“Handwriting also has a history of its own. Writers have not written in an identical manner in all times and places. Handwriting has been variously practiced as copying or composing”
(Thornton XI).
There were several different training types to learn the art of handwriting, including private lessons, educational schooling, or self-teaching books. Writing masters, who were skilled in several writing styles, taught the private lessons and schooling. Their students learned to write by repeatedly copying their script until it matched. By the 1830s, penmanship was taught in public schools as one of three main subjects, forming the educational format of the ‘three R’s,’ which are reading, writing, and arithmetic. Students were no longer taught by imitating the writing of their teacher but imitated the form found in a printed text book, referred to as copybook style; it was similar to scribes copying manuscripts in the middle ages. This discarded creativity and focused solely on the
17 formation of letters. “Copybooks taught students how to write, but more strictly speaking,
they taught students how to copy writing” (Thornton 17). Poorer schools in rural areas still
had writing lessons based on the teacher’s style even though the teacher was usually not a
writing master. This created a recognizable difference in urban and rural scripts for analysis.
As the training of handwriting changed from copying the script of a writing master to
educational textbook copying, there came a change in the concept of handwriting analysis.
Unlike colonials of the eighteenth century viewing writing as an external display of public
representation of one’s social identity, Americans of the nineteenth century viewed
handwriting as a display of character. Writing was looked upon in a more philosophical
viewpoint focusing on the mind controlling the body’s movement during letter formation.
“The ultimate goal of Victorian penmanship pedagogy was not so much the direct imposition
of control as the instillation of habits of self-control” (Thornton 52). The most recognized
writing scholar of the 1800s was Platt Rogers Spencer. His system utilized one’s
imagination comparing letter formation with the shapes of natural objects. “Eighteenth-
century penmanship manuals conditioned their readers to focus as much on the movement
that produced handwriting as on the visual effects of the completed script” (Thornton 33).
Spencer states writing “takes Penmanship quite out of the circle of arts merely mechanical, providing it with dignity as an intellectual pursuit” (cited by Thornton 49).
Spencer’s writing system spread throughout the United States in public school textbooks and Spencerian business colleges. His lessons were regimented in a manner to teach students muscular control, going so far as detailing the correct way to sit, position feet, writing arm, elbow, and hand, and proper finger position. Teachers “barked commands
18 (‘up,’ ‘down,’ ‘left curve,’ ‘quick’) as pupils performed their handwriting exercises”
(Thornton 50).
A new style of writing was formed in the late 1800s, known as Palmer’s method. It was created by Austin Nathan Palmer. In the rapidly changing social and economic times, men felt less and less in control of everything around them. Women not only wrote novels at this time, they also worked in the business field. “By 1920 women comprised ninety-two percent of stenographers and typists and forty-nine percent of bookkeepers” (Thornton 70).
As businesses grew larger, staff members became mere underlings that were easily replaced; this added to the increase of women workers and ruined the male-dominated business world image. Palmer’s method of writing provided men with a modicum of trust that they still held the control.
This new writing style eliminated Spencerian’s ornateness. “By comparison to
Spencer’s letters, Palmer’s were spare-unshaded, sheared of superfluous lines, almost bereft of ornament” (Thornton 67). While Spencer’s script was a cursive format, the Palmer style is format of today’s cursive script; it allows for fluidity and speed as the pen does not leave the paper between letter formation rather just between words. While previous writing styles, especially the Spencerian method, were direct copies from textbooks, the Palmerian method did not focus as much on perfect form. One’s posture, arm position, or finger-to-pen cross were not defined. The body position was not structured but was free form; therefore, handwriting took a unique turn. People now had the freedom to write in their own style, which made individualistic instead of a copy from a book.
The Palmer method was widely popular and used through the late 1800s; however, some disapproved of this writing and teaching style. Among those to ridicule the method
19 were Cloyd N. McAllister and Charles H. Judd of Yale University and Frank Freeman of the
University of Chicago. Each performed studies determining better ways of movement during letter formation. Their theories were based on the belief that handwriting was a muscular automatism resulting after constant repetition. “They characterized handwriting as an automatic act, using the vocabulary of the new psychology: involuntary movement, reflex action, motor habit” (Thornton 143).
Once a person found the quickest and easiest way to form his/her letters, “writing became an unconscious motor habit” (Thornton 146). McAllister’s 1899 study recorded volunteers’ hand movements during the act of writing. “He concluded that the optimum slope for handwriting was about seventy-five degrees” (Thornton 146). Judd’s examination of hand movement in 1903 concluded that full arm, wrist, hand, and finger movement was needed to write. Freeman’s study in the 1910s furthered Judd’s study refuted Palmer’s method as that form focused only on arm movement. Furthermore, Freeman determined the formation of each letter required a unique movement and could not be done with a repetition of the same movement.
With Freeman’s new writing concept, the popularity of the Palmerian method greatly diminished as students complained of the unnatural movements. Readability of handwriting decreased as well, and teachers started to look at form again instead of solely focusing on movement. There was no question school systems throughout the United States were ready for a new handwriting method; however, the actual change from one form to another created many issues. Part of the problem was the fact that there was no new style to change to;
Freeman’s method was still a work-in-progress and unknown to most schools. Also, most teachers had been extensively trained in the Palmerian method not in muscular movement,
20 like Freeman’s style. This style of full movement in letter formation was taught in schools
but did not become popular until a new method of writing education developed.
The new practice of handwriting embarked in the 1920s and 1930s altered the
teaching and execution of handwriting as well as the belief that handwriting is not an
expression of individuality. All previous writing methods, including that of Spencerian,
Palmerian, and Freeman only taught students a cursive format. Manuscript writing
eliminated that style in place of print. “Manuscript advocates emphasized the pedagogical
advantages of the new approach: how easy it was to teach and especially learn, how legible it
was, how it broke down the barrier between reading and writing instruction by scrapping a
two-font system” (Thornton 171-172).
Manuscript writing spread rapidly from its inception, becoming the standard teaching
method in private and public schools after the 1940s. During this spread in the school
systems, the original concept behind manuscript writing changed completely. The use of
cursive writing was to be eliminated; however, it now served as a temporary method before
the cursive format was learned. Print was taught to younger children as they were not able to
mentally nor physically generate a readable and proper cursive form.
Today, an individual will typically learn to write in elementary school grades one through three, first in print form and then later in cursive. The student is asked to reproduce the letters of the alphabet using a model. The child will adopt unique characteristics to one’s writing that is pleasing to the writer’s eye or is comfortable to form once adept at writing the copybook style; an individual’s writing will develop until letter and word formation becomes habitual. “When the writer produces writing as a sub-conscience act without giving conscience thought to the movement of the pen, but rather to what words to use, he has
21 reached writing maturity. This writing will be different than the handwriting of any other
individual in the world” (Norwitch 1). By an individual’s late teens, writing has matured to
the point where the writing has a unique style. This individualized handwriting is what
graphologists and handwriting analysts analyze to garner information about the writer.
Graphology
The examination and study of handwriting for character analysis began in the mid
1800s. It was known as handwriting analysis, which then became known as graphology by
the 1870s. The field developed slowly as a new theory of writing assuming that “each
person’s handwriting is different and reflects his or her character but also…each person is
characterologically unique” (Thornton 73). Before this new development, it was thought
anyone could learn to write but only as a copy of the style they learned since people were
taught a method of writing based on their gender, class, occupation, etc. An individual with a
unique and individualistic script was rare and looked upon as being unique.
The basis of handwriting analysis (that of character traits being present in one’s
script) was founded by Swiss pastor, Johann Kaspar Lavater in his study examining
signatures. Edouard Auguste Patrice Hacquart, a Frenchman, created the first work of
handwriting analysis in 1812 titled, The Art of Judging the Mind and Character of Men and
Women from Their Handwriting. In 1886, it was established as a science by the Sorbonne
Congress in France; graphology was then adopted by the Germans in the 1890s. Yet, it was not until 1927 that the American Graphological Society was established; however, graphology is not accepted as a science in the United States even today.
Through the 1830s, graphology was not considered an accurate assessment of handwriting; the identifiable markings in handwriting were thought to be uncontrollable by
22 the writer and acquired based on the style of writing an individual was taught. For example, it was because a woman was taught a different script than a merchant that they could be distinguished from one another. Reverend Samuel Gilman disproved this theory when he examined the scripts of a brother and sister who were taught identically, though still had separate and dissimilar scripts.
It was from that point that the science of handwriting analysis developed. In 1872,
Adolphe Desbarrolles and the Abbé Jean-Hippolyte Michon wrote on handwriting abilities.
In the United States, John Henry Ingram wrote on his study of famous autographs in 1879.
Unfortunately his work was overlooked as the Abbé Michon developed a new theory creating a systematic approach to the analysis, naming the technique as graphology. His work is the framework of today’s graphological studies. A delineation between handwriting analysis and graphology soon resulted with analysts considered acceptable experts in law and their work acknowledged in the scientific field.
While both graphologists and analysts utilized handwriting as a method to detect forgery, graphology specialized in examining the unconscious, unearthing the true identity of the writer behind a societal image. Many people claimed the ability to read personalities from handwriting before Michon’s method was defined in the 1870s; however, “the new graphology struck out on its own when it shifted the focus of analytical efforts, changed the nature of analytical techniques, and redefined just who could practice handwriting analysis”
(Thornton 94). It was a system of linking a marking, or sign, to a character trait. This included such factors as spacing between letters and words; letter crossing and dotting; slant direction and angle; and line thickness. Unfortunately no theoretical explanation relating the
23 sign to the character trait was reliably determined; observations showed the correlation did exist, though.
Although graphology was not an accepted science without the correlation between sign and trait, the practice continued to be used. This can be attributed to societal interest during the 1800s to 1900s. Graphologists created manuals that they claimed could teach anyone how to analyze handwriting. As a person’s image was of great importance during that time, an individual’s true personality was usually kept hidden from society. This generated a great deal of mistrust among people, which graphologists utilized to gain interest in their work. The public used graphology to reveal their friend’s and neighbor’s true character traits in order to determine who to guard against. In a time focused on societal images, one’s social status was always being judged based on one’s presentation, including handwriting among dress, speech, occupation, etc. “Each hand was regarded as the aesthetic embodiment of the corporate character of the social, occupational, or gender group that made exclusive use of it” (Thornton 37). This idea of proper penmanship encompassed not only the upper-class but society-at-large. A merchant’s writing was thought to represent the kind of businessman he was, for example. Since these ideas by society kept graphology popular, it was unimportant for the practice to be recognized in the science field. While the public was kept interested and occupied with the theories of graphology, scientists and critics tried to eliminate the practice through scientific examination. Graphologists were able to account for all skepticism, except their original obstacle, that of a constant system that correlated sign to trait.
The concept of handwriting being an expression of an individual’s character and personality was not accepted. Before the late seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries,
24 writing was not used for personal use but served to copy manuscripts; therefore, there was no
justification that writing was a tool for identification purposes. Also, as people learned to
write by imitation, many did not believe any personal information of the writer could be
derived from one’s handwriting. Only people that ignored societal conformation by
developing their own handwriting style had any noticeable individualistic markings in their script. Businessmen, for example, had to maintain a respectable image at all times; therefore, they could not express their true self in their handwriting and instead used the copybook format that most of society used. Although the scripts of men and women were acknowledged as different from each other, the distinction was not fully recognized as a tool; instead, the courts questioned the validity of handwriting analysis, saying people could alter their handwriting to appear as someone else.
The government and courts did not regard handwriting analysis as a method of identification before the 1700s. Even though the courts did allow testimony on handwriting samples, only individuals who had seen the person on trial physically writing could testify;
otherwise there were no specific guidelines. A person could still testify, though, even if he
had only seen the writer write one time years before the trial. Handwriting analysis, for the
purpose of identifying forgeries, was fully accepted by scientists as well as by the
government in legal cases even though graphology was disapproved by both.
The first professional use of handwriting analysis was in legal cases. Lord Mansfield
in the courts of England was the first to define who could and could not provide analysis.
Only the use of expert handwriting analysts, not witnesses, was admissible in courts after the
case of Folkes v. Chadd in 1782. That case served as a standard for many future disputed
document cases in both England and the United States. The only exception to using
25 handwriting analysis in court was that no character analysis could be done. “They were not graphologists; they sought to establish the identity, not the character, of a writer” (Thornton
101). Neither jury members nor witnesses were thought to have the necessary knowledge to accurately form any conclusions through handwriting evaluation.
Viewpoints on graphology and the use of the practice changed once again in the
1900s. What began as an interest in examining friends’ personalities became a practice that delivered assurance to the public. Societal focus was now on individuality instead of conforming to a norm as it was in past centuries. People were interested in learning about themselves more so than others. “It is this focus on self analysis that most clearly distinguishes the practice of modern graphology from older forms of handwriting analysis”
(Thornton 122). Graphologists were able to assure people that they were unique by explaining their writing was exclusive to them alone and reflected a distinct personality unlike anyone else. “In some ways…graphology shared much with the numerous approaches to self-improvement and self-development that emerged in this era” (Thornton 124). The use of graphology changed by becoming a method to ferret out potential life partners instead of thieves. Businessmen also garnered the assistance of graphologists in their Human Resource departments to differentiate who needed a promotion and who needed to be fired.
Graphology became a publicity gimmick for the media and businesses and a tool of the masses by the mid 1900s. Teaching manuals became cheap pamphlets or inserts in journals. Articles were written in popular magazines and graphology advice columns became fixtures in newspapers. Feminist Louise Rice had the first column in the New York
Mail and Express in 1912 where she character analyzed reader’s handwriting samples. These columns played the most influential role on the popularity of graphology as thousands
26 continually sent in samples. Businesses catered to this newly popular field by referring to handwriting and/or individuality in their advertisements. “In the 1940s, White Rose tea
(“Your Character in Your T”) and Kellogg’s (the cure for “tired handwriting”) hired graphologists to write advertising copy for their products” (cited by Thornton 120). These gimmicks hindered graphology, making it appear an unprofessional form of amusement.
People “seemed to be looking for something akin to magical self-transformation” (Thornton
127).
As the field gathered more and more attention, studies were performed across the world to prove and disprove the practice. Max Pulver, a German graphologist, developed a theory of handwriting analyzing. He was a chair holder in graphology at the University of
Zurich.
Pulver argued that the upper-most layer of handwriting, the ascenders of constituent letters (the loops of cursive lowercase l or b, for example) reveal the writer’s intellectual and spiritual qualities, the middle layer (such as lowercase a, c, and e) is the key to his emotional and social traits, and the descenders (like the loops of lower- case y and p) clue the graphologist in to physical and sexual characteristics (Thornton 134).
Graphologists continued to theorize that character expression was seen in handwriting; now they presented a look at specific cases as evidence. “They [American Graphologists] seized on the automatic writing of hypnotized subjects, multiple personalities, and psychic mediums as evidence that handwriting emanates from the personality, not the body” (Thornton 168-
169)
Studies comparing handwriting and the sexes, though, were most prevalent, including
Alfred Binet’s 1906 study and June Downey’s examination in 1910. Thornton quotes Rice as saying “the old idea that we can tell the handwriting of a man from that of a woman is nonsense…handwriting simply refuses to have anything to do with sex, since sex is merely
27 an accident-something which does not materially affect the real you which lives in a body”
(137). As graphologists do not characterize script based on boldness or delicateness alone, the identification of male and female handwriting results from specific signs within the writing itself. American Scientists still held that handwriting was just a copy of what was learned with no distinguishing markings. “If script is genderless, insisted graphologists, it is precisely because the character of every man and woman is unique, unaffected by membership in the male or the female sex” (Thornton 140).
Although few writing authorities believed there was any truth in graphology, the fact that it was so popular in the twentieth century made it necessary for penmanship masters to examine it. “It could not be missed that how one chose to read handwriting indicated how one chose to define and value individuality” (Thornton 166). Individuality was not stressed in writing or other subjects in school systems. “Like both manual education and supervised playground activity, penmanship would reform the dangerous, assimilate the strange, discipline the unruly, and accustom the dissatisfied to their role in life” (158). Writing focused on repetitive training exercises in order to obtain proper form and style. This was particularly stressed in schools using the Spencer method, as it used a structured set of commanded drills. “Academics attributed stylistic variations in handwriting to physiological, rather than characterological, idiosyncrasy” (168).
Graphology has continually grown since its first appearance in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It delves into an individual’s personality through an external venue, handwriting. It is a unique form of self expression provided by everyone and available for everyone to see. Anyone can look at a sample of handwriting and infer different qualities
28 from it; however, some people choose to learn the art of graphology through education to become a certified graphologist.
There are many ways to learn graphology today just as there were in years past, including self-teaching manuals and books, teaching lessons from current graphologists, and both correspondence and on-site educational classes. They appear all over the world from the International Graphology Association in Bath, England to the International School of
Handwriting Analysis in New Mexico, USA. There is a separation in education, though, between graphology and handwriting analysis. Analysts have no specific formal educational degree. Classes and course work are offered but only provide a beginning in document analysis. Most learning for handwriting analysis occurs from on-the-job training consisting of various experiences, including a twenty-four-month internship, mentoring by a senior examiner, and class-like courses consisting of case studies, literature review, tests, and mock trials. After training, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Secret Service offer schools in questioned document examination. Individuals can attend the classes to stay current with new developments in the field.
Both fields, though, graphology and handwriting analysis, review handwriting samples in the same manner. Handwriting analysts today focus solely on examining questioned documents to determine forgeries, uncovering alterations in documents, and identifying authorship of anonymous writing. They both start their assessments by looking at the writing as a whole for class characteristics. This allows graphologists to determine a general personality for the individual while it helps analysts narrow the suspect field; then, individualistic markings are noted. Class characteristics are the common features seen in many people’s writing, such as slanting to a certain side. These types of markers can be seen
29 in writings by a group of people taught a particular penmanship style. An examiner will look
at these characteristics but try to focus on more specific writing attributes.
Once the noticeable features have been identified, the examiner will search each letter
and then each word separately to distinguish subtle details consistant in the writing sample.
The analyst will break the words into three zones-upper, middle, and lower.
Upper Zone Middle Zone Lower Zone
Figure 3: Writing Zones Replicated Copy of Figure 55 (Hill)
The main focus is the upper and lower zones as letter formation in those areas tend to have
more unique characteristics because the middle zone is the location for most-used letters,
which have a tendency to remain similar to textbook style. The upper zone is used with eight
letters of the English alphabet while only five letters enter the lower zone. Other interest
points examined are letter formation; slant, the angle of writing; movement, the way the
writing utensil is guided across a paper to create the letters; height ratio, the relationship
between two letters usually in the same word; the “i” dot and “t” crossing; loops, primarily in
cursive writing; typical writing speed; word spacing; and format, or how words are written
either using abbreviations or a symbol. Word endings also reveal personality information.
These and other handwriting attributes are studied in character analysis. Handwriting
becomes an unconscious gesture that reveals hidden personalities. Although graphology is not an accepted science in the United States, it is still a popular field. This practice can and is used for many purposes, including employee screening, forgery identification, spouse determination, or self-reflection.
30 Review of Literature
There are many problems surrounding the graphology field, such as the fact many trained graphologists do not have formal training in psychology. Also, methods used to study
handwriting to form a connection between it and personality is very diversified. The styles
of analysis and focus vary on such aspects of writing as, pressure, size, and width of letters.
Graphology can be divided into two parts, which are holistic and atomistic. While the
holistic approach is used to determine specific personality traits, such as sex or age, without
trying to establish a definitive reasoning for those answers, atomistic does search for that
scientific connection between the estimated personality trait and the handwriting (Fluckiger,
Tripp, Weinberg 1933-1960).
Graphology is used to determine many characteristics, one of which is sex of an
individual. It is questioned whether sex of the writer is established or if the conclusion is actually that of femininity or masculinity. Many cultures brand men with masculine characteristics and females with feminine characteristics. These role definitions can affect the analysis of handwriting because sex determination should not be answered using feminine/masculine guidelines but should instead of find an inherent pattern among female writing compared to that of male handwriting; it is imperative to locate these patterns as women can possess masculine characteristics and vice versa, feminine men (Eisenberg 1938,
Lester, McLaughlin, Cohen, and Dunn 1977, and Lester and McLaughlin 1976).
Although femininity and masculinity do pose a problem for handwriting, studies have demonstrated that individuals with no training in graphology are able to successfully determine sex from writing samples. Therefore sex can be determined even though it is thought societal gender roles and ideas are placed on people’s opinions (Eames and
31 Loewenthal 1990, Lester, McLaughlin, Cohen, and Dunn 1977, and Lester and McLaughlin
1976).
The dominant and non-dominant characteristics of an individual relate to the topic of femininity and masculinity. Philip Eisenberg’s research on Judging Expressive Movement: I.
Judgments of Sex and Dominance-Feeling from Handwriting Samples of Dominant and Non-
Dominant Men and Women in 1938, demonstrates that sex can be determined through handwriting. A greater number of errors did occur when judging non-dominant men and dominant women versus the standard idea of dominant men and non-dominant women. Even though positive sex determination did result, this study suggests the conclusion is based on psychological make-up rather than physiological existence, which means a person is rooting his or her judgment on what is perceived as masculine and feminine rather than any concrete characteristics found only in women’s or men’s handwriting.
These defined male/female roles in society were tested to show their effect on handwriting analysis in Sarah Hamid and Kate Miriam Loewenthal’s research project
Inferring Gender from Handwriting in Urdu and English 1996. This study compared writing in English to that of Urdu writing from individuals living in Islamic culture, which has more regulated gender roles than Western cultures, as there are rules on dress, behavior, and familial positions not found in the United States. Language did not play a factor in results of the study. Cultural norms also did not affect writings, so it can be suggested that writing is an inherent quality. It is not possible, though, to determine if the same standards were used to determine males from females for the English writing as for the Urdu writing. If criteria were different for defining the sex, cultural roles may play a part in the analyst judgments.
32 Part of the definition of feminine writing is delicate, tidy, and neat handwriting, which is suggested as the characteristics of women’s handwriting compared to men who are perceived to have thicker lines caused by heavier pressure and sloppier penmanship
(Sappington and Money 2003 Goodenough 1945). Women have better fine motor skills, which can affect the tidiness and neatness of handwriting. Another influential factor affecting one’s handwriting is the amount of writing an individual performes. An individual with a profession using a lot of writing will not necessarily have the same characteristics as someone who performs all duties on the computer because the amount of time each uses his/her writing skills is not equal. In the past, women typically did not produce the excessive amount of writing men did, which allowed a greater chance for sex to be apparent in handwriting (Downey 1899).
There are many factors that can affect the results of handwriting analysis. Along with the amount of writing practice obtained before analysis, the materials used in comparing two writings can also diminish the reliability of graphology. One type of pen will not make the same markings as another, but writing utensils can also provide the analyst with information that can be inferred just from the instrument. The color ink, for instance, can reflect the gender of an individual if it is pink compared to black. Following the gender roles of society, pink might be more likely to be inferred as a woman if compared to black ink.
During analysis of testing two or more writing samples against each other, chance must be factored into the results. If an analyst knows there are an equal number of male and female writing samples, the chance of guessing correctly is already fifty percent; this knowledge provides a benefit for those individuals over analysts who do not know what the percentage of males and females in the samples is (Hayes 1996).
33 There are many characteristics that graphologists determine from handwriting, such as an individual’s life outlook. This involves whether a person is inherently an optimist or pessimist. “Optimism is defined as the tendency to believe one will experience positive outcomes in life” (Goodman, Knight, and DuRant 1997). There is a standardized test, known as The Life Optimism Test, which can be used to prove one’s views (Goodman, Knight, and
DuRant 1997). More research is being done to find out the validity of The Life Optimism
Test. Optimism in handwriting has been defined by the slant of writing lines. Writing with a slant up is viewed as optimistic while a slant down indicates pessimistic views (Imberman
2003, Rand 1961, and Sara 1967).
34 Methodology
This study involved two separate phases. The first phase dealt with collecting handwriting samples that were then analyzed in the second round. The data was analyzed to determine the level of accuracy with which surveyors with no graphological training were able to analyze handwriting samples reliably determining the sex, life view
(optimist/pessimist), and dominant hand of the samples’ provider. This study provides a look into the field of graphology. It helped to determine whether handwriting is an external expression of the writer to the extent that personality characteristics are noticeable in the writing. This is the basis for graphology, and this study suggests that the field of graphology is more than a pseudo-science, as people with no training can recognize the writer’s personality traits.
Sixty handwriting samples were collected for analysis in the first round. Five female
Chatham College faculty and staff members and five male Chatham College faculty and staff members each submitted, at different times, six assigned handwriting samples and completed the Life Optimism Test (LOT), a personality test. Participants were provided a Pentel
R.S.V.P. Fine Line Ball Point Pen in violet ink to use during the session. They completed the
Life Optimism Test and a survey about their writing habits, Appendixes 1 and 2. The LOT was shown to be reliable in Elizabeth Goodman, John Knight, and Robert DuRant’s 1997 study, “Use of the Life Optimism Test Among Adolescents in a Clinical Setting: A Report of
Reliability Testing.” The test asks eight standard questions with four filler questions. Filler questions in this study are taken from Goodman’s, Knight’s, and DuRant’s study.
Once the optimism test and survey were completed, participants received one sheet of clean, plain, white, unlined eight and a half by eleven inch paper. On it, they printed the
35 following dictation, which was spoken two words at a time until the full paragraph of text was completed:
Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November. All the rest have thirty-one Excepting February alone--- Which hath but twenty-eight, in fine, Till leap year gives it twenty-nine.
This text was selected from Florence Goodenough’s 1945 study, “Sex Differences in Judging the Sex of Handwriting.” Once completed, they received three minutes to make any alterations to their handwriting sample before repeating this process two more times. Three more samples were collected using the same process; however, the handwriting was in cursive form. Each participant’s first and second handwriting sample in cursive and first and second handwriting sample in print were removed from analysis. The choice of selecting the third writing samples was to diminish the possibility that the writer was forcing him/herself to write in a manner unlike his/her standard format.
The second round of the study involved the analysis of the handwriting samples collected. Only five of the twenty samples were used. The samples analyzed were chosen from the final twenty collected by randomly picking them from a bowl of ten sheets of paper listed with separate numbers. The first applicant’s number drawn was a control; that applicant’s print and cursive form were displayed to determine whether a print format affects surveyor’s answers. The other two samples were then randomly selected for either their print or cursive format. This was done similarly with a bowl containing two sheets of paper-one listing print and one listing cursive. This process was repeated for each participant’s number.
36 Chatham College undergraduate student volunteers [referred to from this point
forward as surveyor] evaluated the handwriting samples. Seventy-five surveyors based on an
available and volunteer sample of Chatham College undergraduate eighteen-year-old or older
students completed the survey. They were provided a survey about themselves (Appendix 3).
Each concluded on the handwriting analysis survey (Appendix 4) the sex, personal life
outlook, and dominant hand of the writer without being provided any information or
indicators about the writer. They were also asked their level of confidence on their answers.
This part of the study was structured as was Sarah Hamid and Kate Miriam
Loewenthal’s 1996 study, “Inferring Gender from Handwriting in Urdu and English” asking the questions on a four point Likert scale of sex, dominant hand, and life outlook. The scale was used to diminish the possibility of random guessing on the part of the survey participant.
A follow-up question was asked for each category-sex, dominant hand, and life view- involving surveyor’s confidence level on her answer choice. A Microsoft PowerPoint presentation displayed the six handwriting samples; this was used instead of a hardcopy paper survey of the samples in order to eliminate the opportunity for surveyors to compare
writing samples. It also limited each surveyor to the same allotted three-minute time slot to
review each writing sample. The results from the Likert scale were analyzed by collapsing
the three question sets-sex, dominant hand, life outlook-into two answers per set. Definitely
and possibly female were categorized into one answer (female) and definitely and possibly
male were combined into one (male). This procedure was taken from Hamid and
Loewenthal’s study in order to obtain a quantitative comparison of male versus female, left
versus right handed, and optimist versus pessimist.
37 Findings
The results of this study were unreliable. Sample One’s (Appendix 5) author was accurately identified as right-handed; however, his sex was not positively identified, and he was considered pessimist when he was an optimist. The author of Sample Two (Appendix 6) was accurately recognized as right-handed, but not as an optimistic female. While Sample
Three’s (Appendix 7) author was incorrectly identified as a female, surveyors positively classified him as a right-handed optimist. Sample Four’s (Appendix 8) author was only accurately recognized as a male, but he was incorrectly labeled left-handed and pessimistic.
Accurately identified as a right-handed optimist, Sample Five’s (Appendix 9) author was wrongly regarded as a male. Sample Six’s (Appendix 10) author, unlike the other handwriting sample writers, was accurately identified as male, right-handed, and optimistic.
Samples One, Four, and Six were submitted by the same author to test for reliability.
The results of these surveys were not similar. Sample One was only positively identified as right-handed; Sample Four was accurately said to be a male writer; and, the results of Sample
Six were all correct. While Sample One and Four were in cursive form, Sample Six was in
Print, which generated more reliable results.
38 Conclusion & Discussion
The overall conclusions resulting from this study reveal that neither sex nor life outlook can be reliably drawn from handwriting analysis by people without any graphology experience. The sex of the writer was chosen accurately only thirty-three percent of the time, or in two out of six samples. Life outlook was accurately identified fifty percent of the time, or in three out of six samples. The dominant hand, however, was accurately recorded eighty- three percent of the time. There was a clear delineation between answers. Eighty-eight percent of the time there was a ten percent or greater difference between each set (male vs. female, left-handed vs. right handed, optimist vs. pessimist). While the results were not reliable, surveyors were confident in their answers overall. Although there is no correlation between their correct answers and their level of confidence or vice versa, few surveyors noted they were not confident in their answers.
These results are drawn from a group of all-female participants, which does not present an accurate portrayal of the general population. The surveyors, though, declared the writers male more often than female, in four of the six samples. There was no correlation between the determination between sex and life outlook. Also, dominant hand and life outlook resulted in no correlation. This demonstrates that samples were not reviewed with biases on sex, meaning females were not always considered pessimists and males considered optimists nor vice versa.
A connection with the form of writing can be drawn. The printed samples resulted in at least two of the three sample questions being correctly identified both times. Also, in comparison of all the samples, the printed samples’ authors were characterized as optimists more than the cursive forms. The authors of both of the printed samples, five and six, were
39 labeled optimists while three of the four cursive samples were deemed pessimists. These results indicate that it is easier to infer character analysis from print than cursive form. This can be attributed to the fact that cursive is more likely to be a copy of the model learned than print is. The most popular writing style is a combination of both print and cursive. There are few opportunities for a person to write in cursive and not have the overall appearance as that of a copybook style; all the letters connect in a word so the flow of writing can often affect the result. Graphologists are trained to locate character markings in what appears to be a model of a learned style; however, people with no training, like the surveyors of this study, have not been trained. Print form, however, can be altered and changed based on the writer’s choice. The pen is lifted from the paper not only between words but letters as well, which provides a greater opportunity for individualistic markings and other writing identifiers to develop. Size of the letters can be changed per letter in print; since each letter leads to another in cursive, letter size is often affected by the letter in front of each one. Print form, unlike cursive, often does not have the loops, slant, or word ending flourishes, which graphologists use in their analysis.
While the result totals for each set of questions, sex, dominant hand, and life outlook, have differences among them, sample three shows the most difference. The results are overwhelmingly female (73%), right-handed (76%), and optimist (77%). Although the sex was not accurately identified, this sample has the most delineation between the answers. As this is the middle point of the questions, it can be considered that by this point the surveyors have generated criteria that they are using to judge the handwriting samples. The results of sample four generated only one correct answer that of the sex of the writer; however, the
40 accuracy of the answers improved overall, as seen in samples five and six where five of the
six question sets were positively established.
This sample (No. 3) of handwriting might reflect the findings of Philip Eisenberg’s
study, Judging Expressive Movement: I. Judgments of Sex and Dominance-Feeling from
Handwriting Samples of Dominant and Non-Dominant Men and Women that found people
base their conclusions not on the physical form of the handwriting, but it is established on
assumptions of masculine and feminine writing. This sample is in cursive form with
characteristics that might be attributed to feminine writing more so than masculine writing,
such as slanted writing, loopy letter formation and smooth letter transitions. One surveyor
mentioned on her questionnaire that “somebody once told me males write messier than
females.” This suggests that people had a bias on what constitutes female and what
constitutes male writing. This hypothesis could be supported if the study was re-done with a
section asking surveyors what they looked at to determine male versus female, left versus
right handed, and optimist versus pessimist.
Samples one, four, and six were provided by the same writer. This was done to
determine the reliability of surveyors to accurately review the handwriting samples. It tested
for random answer selection. Although the results of the three samples do not match, the
result totals for dominant hand of samples one and four were exactly the same just reversed.
While sample one was identified as right handed by fifty-six percent of the surveyors, sample
four was said to be left handed by fifty-six percent. One possible explanation is that surveyors noticed the samples were similar yet confused on why it was repeated; they then chose to answer in the opposite. Not only were the results for dominant hand backwards, but
41 the sex of the writer was labeled male in the first sample and female in the fourth, which also corroborates the hypothesis that people switched their answers.
Both cursive forms of the control sample resulted in a pessimistic characterization of the author; however, the print form did not. The final sample (a printed sample), was the only sample that generated the correct answer for all three questions-sex, dominant hand, and life outlook. There is no correlation between the two control samples, cursive and print.
Only one question set was answered correctly in the first two controls (life outlook in sample one and sex in sample four); however, the final control sample was correct in all question sets.
While the first two control samples matched in the results of dominant hand, the last two controls matched in sex determination; they were the only two samples to be positively identified as male writers. This might be attributed to the fact that a connection was made between the two samples. Letter formation in one might have been recognized in the other generating in the same results. Even though cursive and print forms look different as a whole, some letters are written in the same formation in either style.
Although the results revealed that handwriting might not have noticeable personality traits that anyone can see, this study shows that characterization can be inferred from handwriting. This study cannot detail what inferences were made or what surveyor’s based their answers on, but many of the people taking this study examined the handwriting in a clear attempt to garner an answer to the best of their abilities. Some even went so far as to simulate the writing style in the air to determine if a left or right handed person would have created that script. Many of the results showed a differentiation between the answers, like sample six’s seventy-one percent to twenty-nine percent male determination.
42 Suggestions for Future Research
This study could be performed using males and females as well as people in a wider age range. This might alter the results as this study was limited to only female surveyors ranging from eighteen to twenty-four. Younger people might type more than physically write, which alters the perspectives of analysis. Also, the study could be used in a comparison of results garnered from trained graphologists to determine if education in the field can garner more accurate results.
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45 Appendix 1
LIFE OPTIMISM TEST
Please read the following sentences and circle a number to match your view with 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree.
In uncertain times, I usually expect the best.
Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5
It’s easy for me to relax.
Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5
If something can go wrong for me, it will.
Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5
I always look on the bright side of things.
Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5
I’m always optimistic about my future.
Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5
I enjoy my friends a lot.
Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5
It’s important for me to keep busy.
Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree
46 1 2 3 4 5
I hardly ever expect things to go my way.
Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5
Things never work out the way I want them to.
Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5
I don’t get upset too easily.
Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5
I’m a believer in the idea that “every cloud has a silver lining.”
Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5
I rarely count on good things happening to me.
Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5
47 Appendix 2
AGE: ______SEX: ______
LEVEL OF EDUCATION: High School Diploma/GED___ Some College___ College Degree___ Masters___ Doctorate___ Other___
DOMINANT HAND: (hand with which you write) Left___ Right___
TYPICAL WRITING STYLE: Cursive___ Print___ Combination___
TYPICAL WRITING UTENCIL: Pen___ Pencil___ Other______
TYPICAL COLOR OF WRITING UTENCIL: (if using utencil other than a pencil) Black___ Blue___ Other______
ESTIMATED NUMBER OF HOURS SPENT WRITING BY HAND PER WEEK (Please mark one most applicable)
0-3 4-7 8-11 11+
PERSONAL LIFE OUTLOOK BELIEF: Rate the degree you believe you are an optimist (see definition below)
Not an Optimist Always an Optimist 0 1 2 3 4 5
Optimism is defined as: “inclination to hopefulness and confidence” (Taken from The Oxford American Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus, Second Edition)
48 Appendix 3
Age: ______
DOMINANT HAND: (hand with which you write) Left___ Right___
TYPICAL WRITING STYLE: Cursive___ Print___ Combination___
TYPICAL WRITING UTENCIL: Pen___ Pencil___ Other______
DO YOU HAVE ANY FORMAL OR INFORMAL TRAINING IN HANDWRITING ANALYSIS? Formal______Informal______
What kind and to what extent? ______
ESTIMATED NUMBER OF HOURS SPENT WRITING BY HAND PER WEEK (Please mark one most applicable)
0-3 4-7 8-11 12+
PERSONAL LIFE OUTLOOK BELIEF: Rate the degree you believe you are an optimist (see definition below)
Not an Optimist Always an Optimist 0 1 2 3 4 5
Optimism is defined as: “inclination to hopefulness and confidence” (Taken from The Oxford American Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus, Second Edition)
49 Appendix 4
Sample 1
Definitely Male Possibly Male Possibly Female Definitely Female
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
Definitely Left-Handed Possibly Left-Handed Possibly Right-Handed Definitely Right-Handed
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
Definitely Optimist Possibly Optimist Possibly Pessimist Definitely Pessimist
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
Sample 2
Definitely Male Possibly Male Possibly Female Definitely Female
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
Definitely Left-Handed Possibly Left-Handed Possibly Right-Handed Definitely Right-Handed
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
Definitely Optimist Possibly Optimist Possibly Pessimist Definitely Pessimist
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
50 Sample 3
Definitely Male Possibly Male Possibly Female Definitely Female
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
Definitely Left-Handed Possibly Left-Handed Possibly Right-Handed Definitely Right-Handed
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
Definitely Optimist Possibly Optimist Possibly Pessimist Definitely Pessimist
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
Sample 4
Definitely Male Possibly Male Possibly Female Definitely Female
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
Definitely Left-Handed Possibly Left-Handed Possibly Right-Handed Definitely Right-Handed
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
Definitely Optimist Possibly Optimist Possibly Pessimist Definitely Pessimist
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
51 Sample 5
Definitely Male Possibly Male Possibly Female Definitely Female
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
Definitely Left-Handed Possibly Left-Handed Possibly Right-Handed Definitely Right-Handed
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
Definitely Optimist Possibly Optimist Possibly Pessimist Definitely Pessimist
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
Sample 6
Definitely Male Possibly Male Possibly Female Definitely Female
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
Definitely Left-Handed Possibly Left-Handed Possibly Right-Handed Definitely Right-Handed
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
Definitely Optimist Possibly Optimist Possibly Pessimist Definitely Pessimist
Follow-Up Question: Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident
52 Appendix 5 Sample 1
Results are compiled from surveys completed by sixty-two Chatham College undergraduate women with no training in graphology
Male Female
45% 55%
Left-Handed Right-Handed
44% 56%
Optimist Pessimist
39% 61%
ACTUAL: Male, Right-Handed, Optimist
53 Appendix 6 Sample 2
Results are compiled from surveys completed by sixty-two Chatham College undergraduate women with no training in graphology
Male Female
53% 47%
Left-Handed Right-Handed
45% 55%
Optimist Pessimist
42% 58%
ACTUAL: Female, Right-Handed, Optimist
54 Appendix 7 Sample 3
Results are compiled from surveys completed by sixty-two Chatham College undergraduate women with no training in graphology
Male Female
27% 73%
Left-Handed Right-Handed
24% 76%
Optimist Pessimist
77% 23%
ACTUAL: Male, Right-Handed, Optimist
55 Appendix 8 Sample 4
Results are compiled from surveys completed by sixty-two Chatham College undergraduate women with no training in graphology
Male Female
53% 47%
Left-Handed Right-Handed
56% 44%
Optimist Pessimist
44% 56%
ACTUAL: Male, Right-Handed, Optimist
56 Appendix 9 Sample 5
Results are compiled from surveys completed by sixty-two Chatham College undergraduate women with no training in graphology
Male Female
69% 31%
Left-Handed Right-Handed
32% 68%
Optimist Pessimist
66% 34%
ACTUAL: Female, Right-Handed, Optimist
57 Appendix 10 Sample 6
Results are compiled from surveys completed by sixty-two Chatham College undergraduate women with no training in graphology
Male Female
71% 29%
Left-Handed Right-Handed
42% 58%
Optimist Pessimist
55% 45%
ACTUAL: Male, Right-Handed, Optimist
58 Appendix 11 Sample 1
Sex Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 8% 58% 18% 14% 2%
Dominant Hand Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 14% 44% 29% 11% 2%
Life Outlook Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 3% 31% 55% 9% 2%
Sample 2
Sex Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 20% 45% 24% 11% 0%
Dominant Hand Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 16% 53% 22% 9% 0%
Life Outlook Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 6% 42% 41% 8% 3%
59 Sample 3
Sex Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 34% 45% 16% 5% 0%
Dominant Hand Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 27% 53% 14% 6% 0%
Life Outlook Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 22% 42% 31% 5% 0%
Sample 4
Sex Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 16% 44% 26% 16% 0%
Dominant Hand Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 13% 47% 25% 13% 2%
Life Outlook Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 6% 27% 26% 7% 0%
60 Sample 5
Sex Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 22% 42% 27% 9% 0%
Dominant Hand Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 22% 44% 23% 6% 5%
Life Outlook Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 13% 47% 33% 5% 2%
Sample 6
Sex Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 41% 38% 13% 8% 0%
Dominant Hand Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 20% 39% 33% 6% 2%
Life Outlook Completely Confident Semi-Confident Neutral Semi-not Confident Not Confident 17% 48% 26% 9% 0%
61